


cuticles

by insistentbass



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-05
Updated: 2012-11-05
Packaged: 2017-11-20 13:34:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/585920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insistentbass/pseuds/insistentbass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'It’s not quite morning, but some indistinct place; John’s shirt still smells almost-deceased, the duct tape residue tacky-sticky on the buttons when he presses his fingers to them.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	cuticles

  
  
It’s not quite morning, but some indistinct place; John’s shirt still smells almost-deceased, the duct tape residue tacky-sticky on the buttons when he presses his fingers to them. There’s still a decidedly elastic air thrumming between them. Sharing a cab back to Baker Street as per usual after a crime scene has done nothing to improve the mood, or the normality. Maybe because John’s limbs echo with the shakes, and Sherlock’s left thigh is pressed stone close to his own in the back of the cab, unmoving - but more probably, it’s because this time they actually _were_ the crime scene, and the evidence instead was not under the fingernails of a corpse, but in the tiny flecks of Semtex on Sherlock’s cuticles, where he had ripped death from John’s chest so violently.  
  
No words are spoken the whole ride back, and that’s really just fine; John doesn’t think he can handle anything other than silence right now, and even if he could, he’s pretty sure if he were to open his mouth only emptiness would come drifting out of it. There’s a lot to process, and the sound of Sherlock’s brain opening and closing its filing cabinets is the only one breaking the monotony of tires on London road.  
  
And it’s not as if either of them have never been inches from death before - in fact, it’s a fairly regular occurrence - but this is different, as it always inevitably is. Something John can’t place his static fingers on, right now, but there’s no doubt he will soon, and when it’s achingly far too late.  
  
“Come on” Sherlock says, as if he needs telling.  
  
The cab halts and John’s guided out of it by a hand hovering centimetres from the small of his back, he can hear Sherlock’s jacket lapels brush against his Parka, like long grass in a late summer breeze.  
  
“We need tea,” John hears from behind him as he makes his way up the stairs, Sherlock following for once, and tentatively; carefully slow paced steps and too steady breath, and that hand has migrated to the centre of his spine and _none of it is right._  
  
“Yes?” Sherlock asks, hovers behind him, connects them by the flat of his palm all the way to John’s arm chair, and it’s not really a question for him so he doesn’t answer it; slips down into the plush seat and doesn’t let out his breath until Sherlock reluctantly breaks contact, flicks the kettle on with no purpose whatsoever.  
  
Something deep in John twists a little, struggles with the ebbing adrenaline and the building tension in his gut - they’re alive, they’re safe and it’s all fine, really - except there was _something_ , there, wasn’t there? Between the poised clench of Sherlock’s finger on the trigger and the tiny hairs rising on the back of John’s neck, something, a whispering glimmer of potential on a scale larger than before.  
  
Potential, is thrilling.  
  
“ _Sherlock_ ” John starts, rubs a sweaty hand across his face because now Sherlock’s gone so far as to get two cups out, throwing in sugar that John doesn’t take and spilling milk over the rim of the porcelain.  
  
He doesn’t need to look at the man to tell he’s tightly wound, can feel it like delayed static bouncing off his shoulders, reverberating off the walls and against his own buzzing skin. There’s only so much room for such electricity though, and Sherlock snaps, lobs a teaspoon across the counter and kicks it for good measure, the clattering of steel on lino makes John’s teeth clench.  
  
Before he can repeat Sherlock’s name the man’s in front of him, striding and pacing and simultaneously removing his jacket, shaking the swimming pool off with a roll of his shoulders. All John can do is lay his hands on the arm rests and watch, flex his knuckles and shift minutely in his seat as Sherlock tries to control himself; attempts to contain his muscles and tendons and brain waves in one solid bodily compartment, desperate to keep the gates closed.  
  
And John - _John_ wants to force them open, wants to climb in and taste the flood waters.  
  
But he’s passive, he’s boiling in his own goddamn skin, and he will not, _cannot_ do all of Sherlock’s dirty work for him. So he sits and waits and climbs the walls while the man wears the carpet out, muttering to himself and running mad fingers through his hair, and _Come on_ , John thinks, _I’m here_.  
  
Maybe he’s psychic, then, because Sherlock’s body stops and his head snaps round as if he’s forgotten where he is, and that John is in fact still breathing, still waiting -  
  
“That isn’t what we need at all” Exhaled, as Sherlock takes two strides to stand before him, chest heaving and eyes darting between here and some far away space, and drops to the floor.  
  
Sherlock _kneels_ , and John’s world collapses into the few inches around them and between them. Tips of Semtex fingernails at his calves, testing, making muscle dance, and it takes all of his will to keep his breath steady; then more pressure to the inside of his knees, the line of his thighs as Sherlock smoothes the heels of his palms along them, ice fire through denim.  
  
There are no words here, only that precious potential, and he collects every second of it, imprints it into his nerves, into his heart - and if Moriarty burns out Sherlock’s then he can have John’s, wholly, already does.  
  
As Sherlock rises up a little John meets him, pushes forward through the opaque air and wraps a sure hand around his neck, waits for nothing but the smallest nod of the man’s chin before he presses their mouths together; pushes through tongue first because he needs to taste every part of this, taste buds hungry and teeth aching for something substantial. Sherlock replies in kind, hands rooted to the crease where John’s thighs meet his pelvis, the tremble of them vibrating straight to John’s cock.  
  
Oh, he hasn’t been this needing ever, not once - and it rolls through him like a first breath, shatters any illusions he might still have that this isn’t right; that he hasn’t always needed Sherlock and always will, somehow, in some way, like this, yes yes yes, _like this_.  
  
It’s not the most comfortable place, and John’s body still aches from being tied up and bundled into a van, being thrown about a bit and then strapped roughly to fuck knows how much explosives, exactly - but it’s funny on a worrying scale how none of that matters now, how he could be on the brink of real death and still moan into Sherlock’s mouth, still claw at his chest like he’s trying to get beneath his ribs.  
  
Sherlock takes the hint, removes his shirt in the time it takes John to sit back an inch and blink, then returns the favour; opens John up like he does every day, slow, one measure of self-control being peeled away with each loosened button. Baker Street is cold, raises the hairs on his arms, but that’s okay because Sherlock’s eyes are dancing over his exposed flesh like he doesn’t know where to look, and _that_ perhaps is the best thing John’s ever seen. Then his goose bumps are being kissed by teeth, from his shoulder to his breast bone, and everything, the whole of London, pales in comparison.  
  
John’s pulling Sherlock off his knees and onto the armchair before he’s even really thought about it, the muscles wake in his arms and he finds strength enough to manoeuvre the man; until there are knees sliding and digging into the chair either side of John’s thighs, and long arms braced on the back of it, an awkward mess of too many limbs and not enough space or air to even breathe.  
  
Somehow, impossibly, Sherlock moves his hips and John feels the proof of everything he’s been wanting grind into his pelvis. John bites his lip and shifts, grips his hands either side of Sherlock’s ribs and angles him down again, until their foreheads touch and their zips meet and both are left fighting for the same oxygen.  
  
Fuck it’s awkward, but it wouldn’t be them if it was easy - and John finds his tongue in Sherlock’s open mouth again because he can’t bear to leave it, sucks and pushes and takes until they almost mould into one another, become whole and filthy together. Sherlock’s fly is undone but that’s about as far as they’ve made it, cannot break apart for fear of losing this, of it being taken away.  
  
“John,” Groaned against his ear lobe, through wet shiny lips, somehow managing to produce words like only Sherlock could at such a moment, intelligent even with his cock straining and heavy.  
  
“ _John_ , I would die with you,” He trembles, and John almost forgets to let the air from his lungs, doesn’t even know where his hands are but feels them shake. “any day… _every_ day, only with you”  
  
Oh, and _that_ \- rushes and tumbles and builds and crashes like a storm kissed wave, breaks down every pore and fills his heart with sea water, salty and pure and like peace. John’s lips taste Sherlock’s jaw, his cheeks, the bridge of his nose and he tries so desperately just to breathe him in, to be part of this man who has saved him, who has _made_ him.  
  
“Yes, _yes_ , Sherlock” It’s all he can whisper, tumbles out of his mouth like the words have forgotten to arrange themselves properly, everything is melding into one and John feels himself, tipping blindly towards space.  
  
It would be embarrassing, with anyone else, both in trousers still and not nearly close enough - but close is even _closer_ when it’s so right, and John’s eyes get caught by the startling clarity of Sherlock’s as he comes, hot and whimpering, thighs trembling and head consumed with Sherlock’s own cavernous moan as he follows suit, shivering.  
  
They recover for a long time, and say nothing. John can still smell chlorine in the curls of Sherlock’s hair as he pushes himself up. It’s all new, and the tension is gone but now there’s something darker, more longing, and he can tell by the crease between Sherlock’s eyes that he doesn’t quite know how to process that sentiment, that particular kind of bone deep feeling.  
  
So John makes no protest as limbs leave his own, as his body is abandoned and the bitter cold shakes him. Sherlock opens his mouth but nothing comes out, and it takes almost all of himself just to sit there and look back at him, accept that this man can’t offer _everything_ he needs, not just yet.  
  
And he keeps looking, watches as Sherlock puts his shirt back on with his eyes full of everything he can’t articulate and never leaving John’s, runs a hand through his hair and straightens his watch and does not say a word. He’s holding back, this genius, this remarkable man that John just wants to have and keep and live for; Sherlock’s let part of himself go only to snatch it back again, because he knows what’s coming, _he knows_ , and now he’s given too much of himself away, too much truth.  
  
John understands all of that, he isn’t stupid and never was. He is Sherlock’s, though - so he gets up, too, throws his shirt on, stands no more than an inch away from him as he buttons it up, lets his knuckles brush against the man’s cottoned chest and thinks, achingly, about kissing him again.  
  
Self-preservation wins out, in the end - so instead, he makes the tea.

  


  



End file.
